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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29335587">daylight licked me into shape</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/alittlebitmaybe/pseuds/alittlebitmaybe'>alittlebitmaybe</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst, Bisexual Buffy Summers, Bisexual Faith Lehane, Canon Compliant, Character Study, Dual timeline: early S3 and early S6, F/F, Fluff and Angst, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, though uhh lighter on fluff</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-02-10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-02-10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-13 11:54:55</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>5,080</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29335587</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/alittlebitmaybe/pseuds/alittlebitmaybe</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>“I’m, uh, glad you did, though. Pick up," Faith says.</p><p>“Are you?”</p><p>“I mean, yeah. I am. It’s good to…” Hear your voice. She can’t fucking say that. What kind of braindead asshole says that? Angel would, that’s who. “How ya been, B?” she says instead, like they’re buddies who call just to <em>chat</em>. Jesus.</p><p>Or: After Buffy's resurrection, Faith gives her a call; several years earlier, Faith taps on Buffy's window.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Faith Lehane/Buffy Summers</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>43</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>129</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>daylight licked me into shape</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/SummerFrost/gifts">SummerFrost</a>.</li>



    </ul><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Big happy birthday to my darling SummerFrost who has reminded me exactly how much I love my favorite show, is a lovely human in every way, and is such an inspiring and talented writer. Love ya &lt;3</p><p>Thank you to <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/themarvelousmaize">Maize</a> who kindly gave this a lookover and some cheerleading &lt;3</p><p>(title from Just Like Heaven by The Cure, which has nothing to do with this fic. I just get fuffy vibes from it and it makes me sad.)</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Faith has memorized only five phone numbers in her life. The first was her deadbeat parents’ home phone. The ugly toothpaste green receiver with the kinked cord that never coiled up right because Faith had once pulled it clear across the room to see how far it could stretch before it pulled back or broke, that would ring and ring and ring while the Lehanes slept off last night’s bender to prepare for the next. She wishes she could forget that one, but a decade of reciting it to the school administrator while she stood scowling to the side with dirty knuckles and waited for the lady to realize that no, her parents weren’t going to pick up, and yes, the answering machine was full, and yes, the stupid school was stuck with her even if she had socked one to little Tony in his precious snotty nose for trying to push her off the monkey bars—</p><p>The second belonged to Fati. She felt her up once under the bleachers while they shared a smoke. She’s never called that one. It might not work anymore.</p><p>The third was Mayor Wilkins’s personal line. Direct call. No secretary middlemen for his best girl. That one would work, but it wouldn’t be the right person on the other end. She’s tempted to try it anyway. On the worse days.</p><p>The fourth rings to the desk phone at Angel Investigations, and she calls it often enough, but Angel’s boo-hoo broody tortured shit gets a bit much, even for her.</p><p>When it’s her turn, she takes the heavy receiver off its hook. Sets (slams) it back down. Bites at a hangnail. Rolls her shoulders, cracks her neck.</p><p>“You gonna make a call or not, Princess? There’s a goddamn line.”</p><p>Faith flips the bird to Donna and snarls, “Step off, bitch, I’m working on it. And I get my fifteen minutes from when it connects, so don’t get any ideas.”</p><p>“Just fucking dial,” says Donna.</p><p>She lifts the receiver again and thinks she’d know these numbers if she forgot everything else, the pattern of the keys still familiar to her fingers. 805…730…5189—she holds the phone between her shoulder and her ear—it rings, rings—</p><p>There’s a click, and then the recording. <em>You are receiving a collect call from an inmate at…</em></p><p>Oh God, she’s gonna hang up.</p><p>
  <em>This call is monitored and recorded…</em>
</p><p>It’s not worth the bill.</p><p>
  <em>…to accept the call, please press pound and…</em>
</p><p>(Fucking Christ, Buffy, press the button, press the button.)</p><p>
  <em>Beep.</em>
</p><p>Faith puts her back to the wall. Her head hits the concrete with a soft thunk that doesn’t even register as pain. There’s no sound on the other end.</p><p>“Yo, Buff. It’s me. You there?” she says.</p><p>A low exhale, and then, “Hey, Faith.”</p><p>**</p><p>Once she gets back to her place, Faith sits around for approximately three minutes before shrugging her jacket back on and walking to Revello Drive.</p><p>It’s less a decision and more a sequence of actions that brings her to Buffy’s lawn. Choosing roads at random until she’s a block away, and seeing what Buffy is up to is as good as anything to do in this shithole, ass backward, demon magnet town. And once she’s standing outside and watching the light turn on in Buffy’s room, she might as well climb the gutter and tap on her window and see if she wants to hang, right? It’s not like Faith is some pathetic loser weirdo who would just lurk under the tree like she has nothing better to do, or like she wants to eat Buffy’s liver or something.</p><p>She swings herself up easy and peers inside. Buffy takes out her earrings, sets them in a dish, and then reaches under her shirt to unhook her bra. It loosens and the straps fall down her shoulder.</p><p>Faith raps her knuckles on the glass. Buffy doesn’t even flinch, but her head snaps toward the window like a predator that’s caught scent of its prey. Good girl.</p><p>She finishes yanking her bra out from under her cami, showing off the curve of her tits, before she even comes to <em>check </em>what brand of freak could be on her roof at this time of night. When she gets closer, when she sees it’s Faith, her expression softens into a close-lipped smile. Faith tries to do it back but it feels wrong on her face. Probably looks more like a smirk.</p><p>“Whaddup,” she says. “Lemme in.”</p><p>Buffy unlocks and lifts the window, crossing her arms over her chest. “Faith. What are you doing here?”</p><p>“Bored.”</p><p>“And…this is my problem because…?”</p><p>“When ain’t it, sugar plum?” She slings one leg over the sill, lounges half-in half-out of the window. “What were you gonna do tonight anyway? Brush your hair a hundred times and sing a little song about how someday your prince will come?”</p><p>“I was <em>going </em>to do a face mask and go to <em>sleep</em>.”</p><p>“Yeah, like I said,” Faith says, and Buffy opens her mouth to snark back but they both freeze when there’s footsteps coming up the stairs.</p><p>“Honey? Did you say something?” Joyce calls.</p><p>“No, Mom!” Buffy shouts.</p><p>Joyce moves closer, just outside the door. “I thought I heard something. Are you talking to someone?”</p><p>“It’s no one. I’m just…talking to myself.”</p><p>(Faith looks up at the ceiling. <em>No one, no one, no one.</em> Typical. The two of them collectively the one girl in all the world and Faith is no one. Like some dirty secret. Stamp that shit on her fucking forehead and be done with it. <em>Not Buffy Summers,</em> in black ink. Tells anyone who’d ask all they need to know.)</p><p>“There’s no boy in there, is there?”</p><p>“No, Mom,” Buffy says, voice going strained, and Faith drags her gaze away from the cracked paint in the corner, shrugs off the moment of bitterness to make an exaggerated kissy face, drumming her fingers on her thigh where it straddles the windowsill.</p><p>“Okay, sweetie. Let me know if you want some tea, I’m putting the kettle on.”</p><p>“I’m good, Mom. Just going to bed.”</p><p>“Okay then. Sleep well, Buffy.”</p><p>Buffy mouths <em>Oh my God</em> as they wait in silence for Joyce’s footsteps to retreat down the hallway.</p><p>“Ooh, miss goody two shoes lies to Mama,” Faith says once she’s sure they’re not gonna get busted. “You ashamed of me or something?”</p><p>“Comes with the territory,” Buffy says grimly. “Monsters go grr, I slay, I tell Mom ‘Gee, demons musta been sleepy today!’ It already keeps her up at night. I don’t need to pile on.”</p><p>“Least you have someone who asks. Who’ll make you chicken soup when your nose is runny, you know,” Faith murmurs, and regrets it, so she keeps talking out of her ass. “D’ya often have boys stowed away up here? Screw the slaying, that’s what she seemed awful worried about.”</p><p>Buffy scrunches up her nose. “Nah, but since Angel, I guess she’s more about protecting my virtue than she used to be. Not that there’s any left to protect at this point.”</p><p>Faith punches her lightly in the arm. “Aw, c’mon, you got lots of virtue left, B.”</p><p>“Oh yeah? Like what?”</p><p>“You get to test ride Angel’s mouth? I bet he’s good with it. Attentive, like.”</p><p>“With his—like, kissing? He was pretty—”</p><p>Faith raises both eyebrows.</p><p>“Oh, you mean…” Buffy’s eyes go wide and she blushes so hard Faith thinks she might pass out.</p><p>“Breathe, girlfriend. I’m just teasing,” Faith says, because she has <em>some </em>mercy. Just not a lot.</p><p>“<em>Anyway</em>,” says Buffy, “I think you were telling me what I’m supposed to do about you being on my roof.”</p><p>“Simple. You’re entertaining me, B.”</p><p>“I only have one face mask, and I’m not letting you sleep here. You snore like a—wildebeest. Do wildebeests snore? A wildebeest who could really use a CPAP machine.”</p><p>“The guy at the mall kiosk told me I have radiant skin, and I never said nothing about sleeping.”</p><p>Buffy raises an unimpressed eyebrow. “Uh huh. What’s the plan, then, if we’re vetoing my thrilling idea?”</p><p>She jerks her head toward the world outside. “Let’s start by getting the hell outta this house, eh? Grab some shoes ‘less you wanna free-spirit it.”</p><p>Without waiting for an answer, Faith climbs back out the window and lets herself fall soundlessly to the lawn. A moment later, Buffy drops beside her, brushes her palms off on her jeans, steps into some sneakers that made the trip down with her.</p><p>“Where are we going?” she asks. “Giles and I already did some patrolling earlier—”</p><p>“Yawn,” Faith interrupts, taking long strides down to the street. “Y’all keep telling me there’s a beach around here, but I’ve never seen it.”</p><p>“Oh. It’s a long walk.”</p><p>“You on a schedule? You can always go put on your sushi jammies and cuddle Mr. Gordo…” she calls over her shoulder, but Buffy has caught up.</p><p>“I’m game,” she says, and Faith grins.</p><p>**</p><p>“Wasn’t sure you’d pick up,” Faith says.</p><p>“Almost didn’t,” says Buffy. “We got, um—caller ID, well, Wil and Tara did when I was—and it said—so I almost didn’t—” She huffs nervously on the other end, and Faith pictures her ducking her head, rolling her eyes at herself. “You don’t care. I mean, I did…pick up.”</p><p>“Yeah, wouldn’t wanna leave a pal hanging, would you.”</p><p>“Right, that would be rude. To a <em>pal</em>,” Buffy says, voice dripping with sarcasm.</p><p>Faith laughs, running her tongue along her teeth. Fuck, she’s lost her game.</p><p>“I’m, uh, glad you did, though. Pick up.”</p><p>“Are you?”</p><p>“I mean, yeah. I am. It’s good to…” Hear your voice. She can’t fucking say that. What kind of braindead asshole says that? Angel would, that’s who. “How ya been, B?” she says instead, like they’re buddies who call just to <em>chat</em>. Jesus.</p><p>Buffy hesitates. “I’m okay. Sorta. Uh—how much do you know?”</p><p>“Got the gist,” says Faith, and her eyes slip shut. Behind them she sees a flash of what she’s been imagining since Cordelia, of all people, passed along that message. <em>Willow called, and Buffy is…back? They did a spell, I guess, but it—it didn’t go quite right. She woke up where…where they left her. I thought you should know. I didn’t know if anyone would think to tell you.</em> And no one had. Bastards.</p><p>She could read between the lines, even though Cordy had been too chicken to say it straight. Buffy had clawed her damn way out of the ground. Who could do that? Could Faith do that?</p><p>Hell yeah, she thought to herself, looking at the walls of her cell. She pulled herself out of that year-long nightmare and she’s doing it again right now. This place is a fucking grave and like hell she’ll stay here. She’s doing her time; guess it makes sense that Buffy had to do hers.</p><p>It wasn’t even Willow who had called with the news, but the chick called Tara she’d met in Buffy’s body. <em>I know we don’t know each other too well</em>, she said in that timid voice, <em>but no one else is really up to it, and I thought you should know</em>. </p><p>I thought you should know, that’s what they all keep saying to her, and then they duck back out of her life no matter what bomb they’ve set off.</p><p>(And she’s been <em>in Buffy’s body</em>. She knows the feel of it, the balance of it, knows in intimate detail the soft ache in her muscles and the slick in her pants after a good hard fight, even when Buffy denies it. Knows how those hands look when they’re your own, how her own skin feels tough and hard under them. How Buffy’s head falls back when she gets off, how she whines high in her throat and she can’t control it. The thump of her heart that didn’t feel so different from Faith’s at all. Every night Faith opens her eyes and she’s in that body, and there’s no air, and she has to dig, and those hands rip and tear and bloody, and she screams herself hoarse—)</p><p>She clears her throat. “You know, the broad strokes. Your Jesus moment or whatever.”</p><p>“Right,” says Buffy. “Okay. Is that why you called? Aren’t you on a time limit or something?”</p><p>Faith checks the clock. “Thirteen-ish minutes and ticking down.”</p><p>Donna grumbles and Faith sticks her pinky in her free ear.</p><p>“So you’re…just checking in. Because if you’re looking for me to talk about it, I so do not want to get into it. It’s just a long, long, boring story, and I was dead for most of it! God, I do not want to talk about it. Please don’t make me talk about it.”</p><p>“You don’t have to talk about it,” Faith says. “When have I ever wanted to talk about anything? You don’t have to talk about it. In fact, I don’t even wanna hear about it.”</p><p>“Thank you,” Buffy replies softly. There’s a rustle like she’s moving the phone to her other ear. She might be sitting down at her dining table. Wonder if it’s still got that lacy tablecloth Joyce always used. Faith liked Joyce. Joyce definitely didn’t like Faith, even before, but most old folks don’t. Who cares. “How’s prison?”</p><p>“Same old. Food makes me wanna hurl and the company is worse. This bitch Donna is up my ass about the phone.” As she says this, she turns her back to the line to pretend she’s alone. “And like, not in a roughhouse-y, fingerbang-in-the-shower way either.”</p><p>“Shame,” says Buffy wryly.</p><p>She doesn’t say anything else. Faith is painfully aware that she doesn’t want to be on this call. She’s not gonna keep talking. All they can get to in the time left is small talk bullshit; there’s no fixing this in the next twelve minutes. But it’d keep her on the phone, maybe. Buffy’s not dead if she’s talking. Probably.</p><p>“Kill anything good lately?” she asks. Buff can totally tell her tone is fake as shit. She always knows. “I live vicariously through you, big slayer gal, living free. Don’t get to kill nothin’ around here. Spiders, if I’m lucky, and they don’t hardly fight back.”</p><p>Faith expects another one word answer, another pointed question, but instead Buffy says, “Not really. Pretty quiet, actually. Oh, wait, the other night, me and S—Xander were…”</p><p>**</p><p>Faith tunes out the town as it passes around them. She’s seen it before, and not much to see. Espresso Pump, movie theater, big fancy college campus overflowing with drunk and rowdy frat douches that shout in the direction of two fucking unaccompanied teenagers, like either of them wouldn’t break the assholes’ fingers one at a time and stomp ‘em where it hurts if they tried anything. It doesn’t matter what they’re shouting. Faith has heard it all and then some. She tugs on the ends of her jacket, sticks her thumb through a button hole.</p><p>Buffy doesn’t say much. Maybe she can tell Faith’s in a mood. Some slayer bond thing, or maybe she’s just perceptive. Or maybe she doesn’t have anything to say. Whatever.</p><p>The SoCal coastal breeze is colder than Faith expected it to be once they hit the edge of town and there are fewer buildings to block it—it’s not that much warmer than back east in the city, salty arctic wind blowing snow in off the bay—but Buffy doesn’t look cold. She’s walking casually, arms swinging, like when they’re patrolling the cemeteries on a quiet night. Faith can see her nipples through her sad excuse for a shirt. She looks away. A streetlight flickers. God, it’s fucking quiet.</p><p>“Y’want my jacket for a little bit?” Faith asks, when the houses get bigger, the driveways get farther apart, and the ground starts going dusty-dirty in patches. “Goddamn cold out here, huh.”</p><p>“It’s fine,” Buffy says. “I’m used to it. It was the same in LA at night.”</p><p>“Yeah,” Faith mumbles. She had forgotten that Sunnydale didn’t just spit Buffy out with unfairly clear skin, an endless supply of prim little outfits, and a stake in her hand. She had a life before this, somewhere else.</p><p>“Dad used to take me to the pier for ice cream and funnel cakes after he and Mom had a fight,” she goes on without prompting, sounding far away. “Guess he felt guilty. One time he let me eat so much that I puked in a trash can and he had to carry me back to the car.”</p><p>“What were you, six?”</p><p>“Twelve, I think.”</p><p>“Sounds like a grand old time.”</p><p>“Seemed like it back then.” A few more steps. Faith scuffs her boots on the pavement. “You grew up on a coast. If mine suck so bad, what are your happy beach funtimes?”</p><p>“Summers on the Cape, having flings and breaking hearts. Tanning my pasty ass by the pool. The usual,” Faith lies.</p><p>“Really?”</p><p>(A cramped apartment on a busy street with the stink of cigs and booze soaked into the walls. Flipping on the ceiling fan to find the power’d been turned off. Sweltering naked on the grimy carpet with the window wide open to catch the hot breeze. Wandering alone down to the gas station on the corner to steal sour worms and eating them while roaming the city until sunset. A green phone that would ring and ring.)</p><p>“Fuck no, I burn like a lobster.”</p><p>This whole vibe has gone weirdly serious. The night was supposed to be fun, God damn it. A distraction. Something to make the sun come up faster. Faith puts a little jump in her step, lets her shoulders crack when she pulls her arms straight over her head. With a few running steps, she throws herself into a cartwheel. Loose gravel on the sidewalk digs into her palms but doesn’t break the skin. When her feet hit the ground, she uses the momentum to throw herself into a back handspring, her spine arching, feeling strong and quick and dangerous. When she lands, facing Buffy, she smiles wide and starts walking backward, quicker than they were going so Buffy will have to hurry up.</p><p>“8 out of 10,” Buffy says. “You gotta stick the landing.”</p><p>Faith laughs. “Fuck off. Like you can do better.”</p><p>“Betcha I can.”</p><p>“Five bucks. Go on.”</p><p>Buffy hops in place, shakes her head and sends her ponytail swinging back and forth. “Alright. Get out of my way.”</p><p>Faith says, “Don’t tell me what to do,” and moves onto the grass.</p><p>She watches Buffy as her muscles shift and bunch under her skin. She’s graceful on top of her power, not despite it. Christ, Faith might as well be a wrecking ball standing next to her. She’s meant to stab and slice and stake and kill, not to look pretty doing it. Lucky she’s never cared about looking pretty anyway. Not even once. Who would she even have to look pretty for? She picks at the chipped black polish on her thumb.</p><p>Buffy pulls off the cartwheel-handspring combo and adds an extra backflip at the end just to be cheeky about it. She curtsies daintily after she lands. “Well? Score me.”</p><p>“Four,” says Faith.</p><p>Buffy’s mouth drops open indignantly. “What? Bullshit.”</p><p>“I dunno, Buff. Looked pretty sloppy from over here.” Faith examines her nails, chewing on her cheek to keep her grin under wraps.</p><p>Buffy shoves her and says, “I don’t know why I thought I could trust your judgment. You’re not exactly impartial.”</p><p>“Should have thought about that sooner. Now you owe me five bucks.”</p><p>“How about I buy you the finest of vending machine Cokes tomorrow?”</p><p>“That’ll work.”</p><p>They walk a while longer—an hour or two, maybe, miles of palm trees and bland stucco houses and strip malls—shooting the shit, spitting jabs at each other’s technique, and eventually come upon the little ritzy beach town that Buffy explains is basically still Sunnydale but pretends it’s not. They pass a 24-hour convenience store and Faith wants to go in and buy them each an overpriced, crusty, day-old donut from the Krispy Kreme display but knows full well that there’s little more than lint in her pockets.</p><p>All of a sudden, she can smell it. Salty and bitter and damp.</p><p>“How much farther?” she asks.</p><p>“Couple more miles down to the water, maybe?” Buffy looks at her and from her face, and Faith knows she’s in for it now. “Call it even if I can beat you there.”</p><p>“What, we racing now?”</p><p>Buffy just curls her index finger, <em>come on</em>, her lips curling up, and starts sprinting away. “First to the sand!” she shouts as she disappears down the street.</p><p>“Bitch!” Faith yells, laughing, and takes off after her.</p><p>**</p><p>“…and its head popped right off! And, like, the blood went <em>everywhere</em>. Was it blood? I dunno, it was like, God, it was like purple <em>pus</em>. I can’t even describe it. It was disgusting. And it got all over my favorite shoes.” Faith can hear the pout in her voice, and she digs her teeth into her lip because it’s always crazy adorable when Buffy pouts, even if it’s about dumb shit like her shoes.</p><p>“Sounds like the fight of the century,” Faith says. “That’s my kind of art, right there. Who’s that one dickhead? Jackson guy. All the splatters. Like him, but demon blood.”</p><p>“<em>Yuck</em>,” Buffy emphasizes, and Faith snorts. “You always did have a way with words. A crude and extremely revolting way, but still.”</p><p>“Aw, gee, thanks, B. That’s high praise from the Quip Queen.”</p><p>“Not anymore. I’m quipless.”</p><p>“Oh. Could just be out of practice,” Faith offers. “Gotta get back in the punning saddle.”</p><p>“Yeah,” says Buffy quietly.</p><p>At that, Faith can’t help herself. She asks, “How long was it for you? Where you were?”</p><p>(Stupid.)</p><p>Buffy makes a discontented noise. “I knew you wanted to talk about it. Liar.”</p><p>“How long, Buffy?”</p><p>She waits.</p><p>“Forever, I guess. Like I’d never been anywhere else.”</p><p>“I’m sorry,” says Faith. She doesn’t know why. She’s never been anywhere else, either.</p><p>“Don’t be.”</p><p>“Are you—” Faith is not cut out for this. She shouldn’t have even called. “Are you…okay?”</p><p>“Not you, too. Everyone tries to play Buffy-shrink these days. I’m fine.”</p><p>“No, you’re not,” Faith says. “I’m not fine. I know you. We’re never just fine.”</p><p>Buffy hums. “You got me. Guess we’re stuck this way.”</p><p>“That’s why you picked up, right? ‘Cus you’re not fine. We both know if you were fine you wouldn’t be talking to me.”</p><p>There’s a scuffle in the line for the phones as someone tries to cut it. Faith barely spares a glance, but catches the time. Seven minutes.</p><p>It’s a long while before Buffy says anything else. When she does, her tone has gone short and hard.</p><p>“Faith,” she says, “why did you really call?”</p><p>**</p><p>They lie next to each other, looking up at the stars. Not that you can see many of them with all the light pollution. But still, the sky out here always seems bigger than anywhere else Faith has ever been. She had to run this far but finally she can fucking breathe. Every once in a while.</p><p>She grabs handfuls of sand and lets it run out from between her fingers. Again, again. They’re far enough from the water that it’s not damp and it still holds some heat from the day’s sun. She wonders how each grain ended up here, how they happened to be on this beach on this night under these bodies, then cusses herself out for being a dumbass.</p><p>Buffy has her eyes closed and her palms on her belly. She says, “You were right. This was better than my plan.”</p><p>“Well, duh,” Faith says.</p><p>“Though I do need to do that face mask or the bags under my eyes will be bigger than my <em>actual eyes</em>. I look like a zombie.”</p><p>Faith rolls onto one elbow to look down at her. The big fat moon hangs right over them and washes her out. Makes her look like the porcelain doll with long eyelashes and a frou-frou dress that Faith had as a kid, ‘til she cracked its head right off. “You look pretty good from up here. I think you’re safe from saggage. But I bet zombie Buff would be kickass.”</p><p>“We don’t need to bet on that one. Regular Buffy already kicked your ass.”</p><p>Lifting her tank top with her free hand, Faith pokes at her sore abdomen where Buffy had slugged her one as they rolled down the beach, biting and hitting and squeezing and laughing. “Yeah, and she goes for the kidneys.”</p><p>“Sorry,” Buffy says sheepishly.</p><p>“Nah, it’s sexy. You know I like my girls vicious.”</p><p>Buffy goes still. The gentle rise and fall of her chest stops. Her eyes open. Faith’s heart rate kicks up a notch.</p><p>“So you do,” she says. “Um, like girls. I wondered.”</p><p>Faith picks up another handful of sand, makes a fist around it so it can’t escape. “It’s been known to happen.”</p><p>“But you—like guys too. Don’t you?”</p><p>“Sometimes. Don’t have anything against dick, if that’s what you’re asking.” The sand trickles out between her thumb and index finger no matter how hard she squeezes. She gives up and drops it. “This a shocker to you?”</p><p>“No. I mean, sort of. I guess I’ve just never heard anyone say it before.”</p><p>“What, dick? Or that they’re kinda gay?”</p><p>Buffy laughs, and Faith relaxes a bit at the sound. “The second one.”</p><p>“Yeah, well. I hear praying it away doesn’t help, but I haven’t tried it myself.” Her skin itches for a smoke even though she hasn’t had one in ages. She needs to shut up, so she keeps talking. “We’re out here, living our lives. Climbing up onto cute girls’ roofs at night.”</p><p>“Oh,” breathes Buffy.</p><p>“What about you?” Faith asks, deflecting.</p><p>“What about me?”</p><p>“You all aboard the cock train?”</p><p>Buffy flushes again at the phrasing, but says, softly but confidently, “I wouldn’t say that. I mean, sometimes when a girl looks through my window like a total perv, I keep undressing anyway.”</p><p>“You knew it was me?”</p><p>Buffy rolls her eyes. “Of course it was you.”</p><p>Neither of them spits it out, though it’s sitting right there between them: <em>I like girls, and I like</em> you. To Faith it seems too obvious to put into words. The world goes around the sun, some sick vamp will meet the danger end of Mr. Pointy on patrol tomorrow, the tide is coming in, and she likes Buffy Summers.</p><p>“Nice,” Faith says. “Appreciated the show.”</p><p>“You are <em>so</em> welcome,” Buffy snarks back, reaching out to smack Faith’s arm with the back of her hand, but Faith catches her around the wrist and holds it. She moves, gets her knees under her, looms over Buffy with her hair loose and shining against the sand, her eyes rimmed in smudged eyeliner, goosebumps edging their way down her biceps.</p><p>All the air on the whole planet leaves. Maybe it’s just Faith who feels it.</p><p>Buffy just lies there. She looks back up at Faith. Faith wonders what she sees.</p><p>Since she’s not shoving her off, not resisting, Faith reaches out with the hand not holding Buffy and runs her thumb along the strap of Buffy’s cami, down to the low neckline, across to the divot in the middle of her sternum. She leaves it there, presses in just a little. When Buffy shivers, she drags it straight up with her nail leaving a white trail behind, up, between her collarbones and up her neck, skirting her chin and landing on her bottom lip.</p><p>Faith quirks an eyebrow, taps that lip once. A question.</p><p>Buffy says, “Do it.”</p><p>**</p><p>Do you remember that night, Buffy?</p><p>(That’s what she wants to say.)</p><p>Do you remember how we walked until my boots pinched my toes because Goodwill only had ‘em in a size too small, and you kept smiling at me and telling me things it didn’t seem like I was meant to hear?</p><p>Do you remember how we raced? How I won but you tackled me and we wrestled—for the hell of it, for the release—wrapped around each other so tight I felt your heart beat? How the sand was warm even though the air was cold and it got all down our pants? Do you remember watching the sky get lighter before you said you had to go home and I asked for five more minutes?</p><p>She wants to say, I know what I did to you but can’t we just pretend for a little longer?</p><p>She wants to say, You and me, Buffy, we’re the same. And when I heard you were gone I didn’t believe it, because I should have felt it. I was alone—the one girl in all the world—and I had no idea. I didn’t <em>feel </em>it, Buffy. Can you imagine?</p><p>“I just—wanted to hear your voice,” she says at last, something sitting tight in her throat. And sure, maybe that’s some Angel shit but it’s true, and Faith has done enough goddamn lying for four lifetimes. She’s working on herself in here, isn’t that the point? “And I did, so. That’s it, I guess.”</p><p>“That’s it,” Buffy echoes.</p><p>“Yeah,” rasps Faith.</p><p>“Let me make this very clear.” The dining chair creaks as Buffy stands. “I answered because I—I needed to, to, I don’t know. I thought maybe…”</p><p>“Maybe what?”</p><p>“Maybe I could do this with you. I thought maybe I could now. But I can’t, okay? Not when I’m already with—no, I’m still not ready. Do you understand?”</p><p>Faith licks her lips, sucks the top one between her teeth. “I understand, B. I get it. ‘S alright.”</p><p>“No, it’s not. Don’t call here again,” Buffy says, and the line goes dead.</p><p>Faith drops the receiver from her ear and looks down at it. It has a chunk of plastic missing where someone bashed it against the wall at some point, and the hole has been duct-taped over to hide the guts inside.</p><p>“You still got five minutes, Princess,” Donna says. “Or don’t you need ‘em?”</p><p>Faith shoves the phone into Donna’s chest on her way past and smiles, sickly sweet. “All yours, sugar tits.”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>I'm on tumblr <a href="https://alittlebitmaybe.tumblr.com">@alittlebitmaybe</a>!</p></blockquote></div></div>
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